The Blarg

Today Dodgerblues was talking about this new promotion by GMC. When you buy or lease an eligible vehicle you won’t have to pay more than $1.99 a gallon for one year. I glanced at the particulars of how you get reimbursed, and while it looks complicated, let’s assume for now that it’s as simple as only paying $1.99 a gallon for a year. So, is it a good deal, or crap?

If I put 12,000 miles with my zipcode for an H3, it says I would save $1250. Not too bad, but is that really what I’d save? Nowhere in their calculation do they say the price per gallon they use. They only say they are using the "State Average Price for Premium Gasoline." An H3 gets 16 mpg city, and 20 mpg highway. I averaged that to 18 mpg for the calculation.

City/Highway (18 mpg):

12,000/18 = 666.7 gallons (miles/mpg = gallons used)
666.7*$2.00= $1333.3 (gallons used*cheap price=total cost of gas under program)
$1333.3+$1250=$2583.3 (total cost+savings = cost without program)
$2583.3/666.7=$3.88 (cost without program/gallons used = assumed $ per gallon)

Assuming my math is right, they are assuming a regular price per gallon of $3.88! The average price of gas around here is only $3.30 right now for cheap gas. That overestimates my savings by almost $400, lowering it to about $865. Now obviously part of this promotion relies on consumer fear of rising gas prices, but their calculated savings is only a best case scenario. They overinflate the savings by using premium prices, which I’m sure not all the eligible cars require (car enthusiasts, feel free to correct me).

So I think the deal is crap, and here’s why. Unless you drive a TON (more than the national average) your savings aren’t huge (probably less than $1000). I don’t know if they’re combining this with other deals, but there are usually cashback deals which offer more in savings, and those are guaranteed. The other reason I think it’s a joke is because it’s only for one year. The crummy mpg of an H3 is going to kill your pocketbook over the long run, not just the first year. After a year of nice gas prices you’re suddenly stuck with a gas guzzler.

So what do you think, deal or crap?

The last week has been jampacked with graduation fun! Last Wednesday we went out to eat with Kevin to celebrate his graduation from CSULB and starting his new job. Not only did his parents treat us to delicious Lonestar, but we saw some friends we hadn’t seen in a while. Once you get married and start spending 90% of your time with your spouse, you really start to value the small amount of time you spend with your friends.

Then on Friday night we went to CSULB to watch Andrew graduate. He’s got a picture on his website, but here is one I took.

It was really cool to see my little brother achieve such an awesome accomplishment. He’s starting his first real job next week, and I’m sure he’ll do awesome. After graduation we went out to Ruby’s in Long Beach, and then headed over to Marina Pacifica to see X-Men 3. Saturday evening we went over to my parents for Andrew’s graduation party with friends and family.

On Sunday I woke up at 6 am to go to Stacie’s graduation at CSUF. She graduated with her MS in Education with a concentration in reading. Long Beach and Fullerton have very different graduation setups. Long Beach had 9 separate ceremonies for each school in the college, while Fullerton only had two big ceremonies, followed by a second ceremony for each school. Basically what this means is Fullerton’s was a lot longer and much more crowded. All my complaining aside, it was great to see the love of my life honored for her accomplishments. She is one of the hardest working and most dedicated people I know. After the ceremony we had a party at the in-law’s house with some friends and family.

Unforutunately about halfway through the Fullerton marathon ceremony I got sick. Sunday night I hardly slept at all, which resulted in me lying on the couch all day Monday. I never even changed out of my pajamas from Sunday night to Monday night, gross huh? Luckily Monday was Memorial Day and I didn’t have to go to work. This morning I was still only about 75%, but I went to a workshop instead of teaching, so that worked out. Spending all day Monday on the couch gave me time to finish off the final episodes of CSI:NY and One Tree Hill. I started to finish Smallville, but I still have a few episodes left from the end of the season.

So that was my long weekend full of graduation mayhem. Congrats to all the other recent graduates (Mike and Amy) I didn’t mention.

Last night I had the pleasure of not only seeing my brother graduate (which need it’s own post), but we celebrated by seeing X-Men 3 afterwards. Here is my spoiler free review.

Being the third movie in a trilogy(?), The Last Stand can’t help but be compared to the previous two films. I don’t know if it was the script or change in directors, but the new movie doesn’t live up to the quality of the first two films. The special effects are well done and the acting is fine, but the storyline is very A.D.D. Many new characters are introduced, and the film attempts to give them all a little face time, but you never learn enough about any of them. I found myself not even being sure of their names even at the end of the movie. I chalk this up to the script having waaay too much story to cover.

Don’t get me wrong, X-Men 3 is still worth the price of admission, but I think it’s the weakest of the three.

Below are several character traits or states of mind that people may find worth striving for in this life. The idea behind this exercise is that you are to rank the following traits for yourself, from most important to least important.

This is supposed to be done privately, so don’t think you have to post your final ordering in your comments. Hopefully you’ve never done this, and I will deliver the "punchline" after everyone has had an opportunity to rank their most desired qualities, and maybe a good discussion will follow. The qualities up for ranking are:

1) Money
2) Happiness
3) Integrity
4) Power
5) Hardwork
6) Selflessness

I’ve purposely excluded a quality such as "loving God," because while it is important, that love should be manifested in tangible ways. If there are any glaring qualities I have omitted that you cannot have meaning without, feel free to let me know. This exercise was performed in Mr. Bradbury’s chemistry class when I was in 11th grade.

I encourage everyone to at least think about those five qualities and have an idea which are most important to you, and which are least important. And while you may not need an update from me to understand the significance of your ranking, I will be back to give it to you. Post if you’ve thought about these so I know people are reading.

Update: I’ve added selflessness to the list of traits at the suggestion of Mike (servanthood seemed restricted to religious meanings, so I thougth selflessness was a little more broad). Selflessness seemed different enough from the rest. This is not the "moral of the story" update, so keep thinking about your rankings.

Update 2: I think Amy actually touched on the whole point of the exercise in her comment. The point this is trying to make is really a matter of priorities, and that when push comes to shove, the way you value the above traits will impact the decisions you make. For example, if you were to come across a lost wallet with $100 in it, the qualities about money and integrity would come into play. The point Mr. Bradbury was making is that if you truly value integrity more than money, you would turn the wallet in. The "big idea" is that your choices are driven not only by the qualities you value, but the order in which you value them. I would say that you cannot place equal priority to all the above traits, because at some point or another in your life one will conflict with another. When that happens the trait that you value more will win.

Are these actual traits or desired traits like Amy posed? I think it can be both. While we can have a desired priority for our values in life, always living up to them is a tall order. I think when I took this "test" I put down happiness as my number one, and I can see how my life has been impacted by valuing that above other things like money and power. I think it impacted the career path I finally chose. There are flaws in this of course (money and power CAN have an impact on one’s happiness), but pitting the values against each other really makes me think about what’s most important to me in life, and the choices I will make because of them.

So was it everything you hoped for? Curious to hear why people picked what they did, if you’d change your choices, and whether or not your life has been impacted by the values most important to you.

I have yet to see The Da Vinci Code, and I still have 100 pages left in the book, but I’m excited to hear that Angels and Demons is already being considered for the big screen. Even though I haven’t finished The Da Vinci Code, I agree with many others that Angels and Demons is the better book. Not only is the story better, but Angels and Demons seems more like movie material than The Da Vinci Code. Angels and Demons has tons of cool action and some sci-fi elements, where a lot of The Da Vinci Code is a bunch talking. That’s not saying that books with people talking is bad, but that some books make better movies than other books.

Since I’m talking about the book, I might as well give my opinion thus far. As a work of fiction, I think it’s an average book. I’m past the holy grail explanation that seemed to go on forever. I see what people are upset about, but I’m personally more upset that Dan Brown ruined the believability of the novel. I was enjoying the entire ride until the holy grail explanation. The problem I have is not so much that it’s "heretical," but that he didn’t convince me of anything. While he tried to give proof to support that part of the story, I think he glossed over way too much. If you’re going to challenge the convential wisdom of your reader, you better have a heck of a lot of proof. Otherwise not only do I not believe the author, but that discrepancy between the fantasy world and real-life end up colliding and ruining the whole experience.

This is where I think Dan Brown’s biggest error occurs. He’s crossed fiction and non-fiction on a subject and in a manner that pulls the reader out of the fantasy world he’s created. I personally think it ruins an otherwise enjoyable mystery.

Boo turns 3 years old today! If each dog year were equal to 7 people years, she would be celebrating her 21st birthday, which is a big deal! To celebrate I’ve gathered up some pictures we’ve collected over the last couple years. Enjoy.
 

As I sit here nice and warm in my shorts and t-shirt, I really can’t wait for summer. I know I have to work for another month (poor me), but I’m really looking forward to summer. Staying up late, sleeping in, going places, reading, gaming, and doing yardwork. Everything about summer is great, except the heat.

I’m not fired up enough about anything political to devote a whole post to that subject. There is stuff that annoys me, like people attacking the High School exit exam, or the useless immigration proposals in Congress.

I’m 150 pages into Da Vinci Code (which apparently makes me NOT a Christian). The movie is getting crummy reviews, so I don’t know if I want to see it now. X3 comes out the weekend after, which I definitly want to see, but that’s also super dooper graduation weekend.

I got a new computer mouse that is super cool, so part of the reason I have nothing good to post is because I’d rather play some good FPS games.

Did you know that 7-Up is now all natural, yet still contains NO JUICE? Apparently they’re using all natural sweetners, yet they do not come from a lemon or a lime. Scary, but it tastes ok.

I finished Angels and Demons today and I’ll be starting The Da Vinci Code as soon as I get the book covered.

Speaking of covering books, I thought I’d point people to a great place to buy book covers. Working at a library gave us some insight into how books are covered and all that stuff, and we’ve had a lot of fun covering the dust jackets of the hardcover books we own. I bought a box of 50 covers for only $20! I have the 4th one down on that list (12 x 23.5).  These have fit all my novels, but if you have a weird sized book measure it first. Also you should pick up some tape to put the cover on. Be warned that this is a semi-permanent process, because the tape adheres to both the book and the jacket cover. We use this tape (the 1/2" stuff).

Your friends and family will ooo and ahhh at your shiny books.